It’s time. The greatest, most anticipated release of the entire Heresy. The Little Pig is here. Let’s get into it.
Thanks to Games Workshop for sending this over for review.Â
The Arvus has a long and storied history as one of the most point-for-pound inefficient models that Games Workshop has ever produced. A solid kilogram of resin released initially in the great first wave of Imperial Guard-adjacent kits, the Arvus is much loved by someone in Forge World (it’s had a resin mould refresh and a plastic kit) and the wider hobby. It’s never been what you might call “good”, but I’ve loved the ridiculous useless brick since reading about it in Imperial Armour 2nd Edition back in 2011, when the 75 point unarmed flyer with Front, Side and Rear armour of 10 flew into my consciousness to the sound of Ride of the Valkyries played on the Kazoo. Its appearance in plastic isn’t a surprise – ever since the resin mould refresh we’ve kind of known it was on the way – and those who want to buy it already are probably f5ing the GW store site already. Nevertheless, let’s have a chat about it, because it’s a lovely kit determined to do the Pig justice.
Building the Arvus
Heresy plastic vehicles are, for the most part, bloody lovely. The Arvus is no exception, with clever construction, mostly tight fitting corners and well designed sprues to build the classic boxy shape that will soar defiant of such heretical concepts as “aerodynamics”. Construction is mostly simple, with one or two really clever touches – the way the sides clip into the bottom panel of the transport compartment is particularly good – and the majority of gribbly bits moulded into large flat plastic pieces.
All that flat plastic with sharp edges means that construction is either going to be straightforward snapping into place or a nightmare of gaps and rubber bands. The Arvus manages to pull off both – the wings are a delight, the body a real bugger despite my use of clamps, rubber bands, a huge amount of time and milliput. I think I managed to put the cockpit door on ever so slightly skewed my a fraction of a millimeter, which made one or two gaps impossible to close, with one (on the right side of the cockpit) opening up post-priming much to my annoyance.
The slightly annoying elements of construction are outweighed by the delight in the little details present throughout the kit. The seats in the transport compartment can be modelled folded up or down and clearly have fabric stretched over a simple metal frame. It looks deeply utilitarian, as simple as humanly possible, and that’s fantastic. Absolutely no frills for the militia/auxilia seats! The under-wing storage is simple boxes with handles that you could potentially even cut open, and the cockpit door only has opening handles from the inside (clever when dropping your soldiers into madness). Lovely!
The kit comes with a few options but they’re mainly related to landing gear and crew compartment. You can model an additional multi-laser gunner who has a fantastic tether to hold them in place, or stow the multi laser inside (that’s what I did). Landing gear can be retracted or lowered – if you model them lowered this will also make a lovely terrain piece when you can’t fit that 75 point flyer into your Solar Auxilia list. Other than that, you’re building the kit stock with no other options, and that’s fine.
Having only seen the resin Arvus a couple of times, I think the plastic kit might be a little bit bigger than the older, heavier version, but I can’t be too sure. It’s certainly a chunky bastard, massively outweighing the humble and much more heavily armed Rhino.
Painting the Arvus
As the transport compartment can be modelled open, you’ll need to paint this in sections if you want to have a nice, fully painted interior. I painted mine in three sections – left wall and floor, top plate and right wall. Once all were painted, I glued them together, masked off the slight gap around the door, and painted the rest of the plane.
The cockpit comes with nice, solid, transparent plastic pieces, so you’ll also want to paint the cockpit separately, both interior and the canopy, before fitting the transparent plastic. This can only be glued in from the inside, so don’t put the canopy in until everything’s ready!
I painted my Arvus in my Ultramar Militia scheme, a much lighter blue than my Ultramarines legionnaires. It’s got very rough counter shading (lighter underneath than on top), but given that my Ixian Militia (345th Rifle Reserve (Activated)) are the absolute last, last, last line of defence, I wanted this to look like a hastily repainted civil transport, so the grey countershading is roughly sponged on over the base deep blue. It has no additional weaponry, no bells and whistles and absolutely no hope.
Half way through I realised I wanted to model the Arvus according to it’s likely battlefield state, arriving with bugger all armour, the third line rule and facing every single interceptor reaction on the battlefield as it attempts to drop off 10 militia idiots. A single shot to the cockpit has, with absolute precision, nailed the pilot and decorated the cockpit interior. Another to the engine has started a fire that’s rapidly spreading throughout the lighter. In less than a second it’ll be a flaming wreck slamming into the ground at terminal velocity. Hopefully, the explosion might take out a terminator.
The Biggest Little Pig
Overall this is a nice kit. It’s not as straightforward or pleasant to assemble as some of the other Solar Aux vehicles, or the majestic Sicaran, but it’s a nice enough build that if you want to pick up a dozen for the most insane and admirable Solar Aux list, you’ll not get bored. I think it’s destined to turn up on a thousand battlefields everywhere, largely because it’s also going to make a lovely terrain piece. If you’re coming to our Heresy events in the UK you’ll see it there – the Penitus Sus (Deeply Pig) – slamming into a table near you.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
